New York – State prison officials will let a Muslim correction officer wear a skullcap while on duty as part of a settlement of a federal lawsuit that claimed it was unconstitutional for the state to refuse to make religious accommodations for prison guards.
The deal, announced today, came after the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of Abdus Samad N. Haqq of Brooklyn, who said New York’s Department of Correctional Services ordered him in 2005 to stop wearing a kufi to his job at a halfway house. A kufi is a knitted skullcap that carries religious significance for many Muslim men. The U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division also filed a lawsuitm on his behalf.
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The deal settling the NYCLU lawsuit was approved by U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. [1010 WINS]